BS: Cranberry harvest

Subject: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: mg
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 06:55 PM

Wow..it is so beautiful here...I can look out my window and the harvest of our research bogs is going on right now..a beautiful blue sky, bright red berries..it usually would be over weeks ago, but the weather has been so dry there hasn't been enough water in the ponds to flood the berries...it has been bitter cold though the last 2 days...hope it hasn't hurt them..they have had frost and ice the last 2 nights..wish you could be here to see it.

mg

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: katlaughing
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:08 PM

mary, I wish I could see them, too. Your description really is lovely. Anything like this: please click?

The first thing my kids did when they started school after we moved to New England, was walk over, on a field trip, to the school principal's cranberry bog. We'd only been in the east for a couple of weeks and here were these three little Wyoming kids who've never seen so much green and damp, walking on spongy earth, raving about the beautiful red "berries." They were thrilled!

Thanks,

kat

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: GUEST,Walking Eagle
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:16 PM

I used to drive over to New Jersy to see the cranberry harvest. It was always beautiful. The fall tree colors, blue sky and those beautiful floating red berries. Millions of them! Someone must have written a song about the scene. It's just too inspiring to not have.

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: mg
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:29 PM

someone posted one not long ago and I have one but it is sort of sad because the growers are having a hard time financially. mg

p.s. it would look exactly like that except no clouds in the sky for us!

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: Sorcha
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 07:40 PM

I'm sure it's a beautiful sight, and that is a beautiful pic, kat, but the reason the growers are having a hard time is probably because I hate cranberries in any form!

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: gnu
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 08:02 PM

I'm hoping to hit a wild cranberry bog this weekend up in Kent County, New Brunswick, eh. Few people know of it and the berries are the finest I've ever tasted. If the locals, that is, the moose, haven't get er stripped yet. I can't eat the cultivated ones after tasting these. Anyone else out there know what I'm talking about ? agree ? disagree ?

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: raredance
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 10:26 PM

"Cranberry Bogs" song is in the DT with two slightly different lyrics, both credited to the same source, Barney Reynolds of Mather, Wisconsin. Geographical place name "Mather" is correct in one version. The name "Mercer" is used in the other which is not correct. Mather, about 100 northwest of Madison is in a major Wisconsin cranberry growing region. Mercer, on the other hand is way up near the Michigan border, not far from Ironwood. That area was known from mining, then logging, but not agriculture.

rich r

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: mg
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 10:30 PM

I just got "volunteered" to help in the bogs tonight. It was great fun. I helped corall the little berries and then someone comes alone with booms and drags them..like a little cranberry roundup. It was done by the lights from trucks and I sure wish I had a video camera..mg

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: open mike
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 10:47 PM

why do you capture them at night? so they don't run away??
I was just in wisconsin a while back..missed th harvest,
but the country side was getting colorful...have you got
the recipe that the NPR susan stanberg.s grandma used for
relish?? has fresh raw berries ground up with horseradish
and it is yummmmmy=the recipe is usally on the nrp web site
this time of year...also there is a kid's book with a cran-
berry cookie recipe in it--any one seen that one?? I made
some wine out of 'em once the possibilities are endless@!@
never had the wild ones, though.

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: mg
Date: 31 Oct 02 - 10:51 PM

I think it is probably because so many of the farmers and their wives have day jobs now. But it sure was pretty. And walking home some men who had been there stopped and offered me a ride and said they had just stopped for a huge buck that was right behind me..and I hadn't heard him...plus I turn around frequently when I walk, trying to stay away from cars... mg

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: MMario
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 08:36 AM

Over Columbus Day weekend I was in Eastern Massachusetts - and each days trip in the car involved driving past innumberable bogs. It was interesting as some were being dry harvested and some were being wet harvested. One bog in particular first day was dry - but obviously full of ripe berries; second day had been flooded; third day was covered with floating cranberries and on the fourth day was bare water. Fascinating!

Subject: RE: BS: Cranberry harvest
From: GUEST,bbc at work
Date: 01 Nov 02 - 11:52 AM

open mike,

My favorite (& easiest) cranberry recipe is an uncooked salad composed of equal parts of ground raw cranberries, halved seedless grapes, vanilla or plain yogurt mixed in to a nice texture & a little sugar added, to taste. It is very light & fresh-tasting. Delightful!

best of the season,

bbc